


Confidence Man

by wilddragonflying



Series: Fallout Fic [7]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Gun Violence, Spoilers, Violence, spoilers for the quest confidence man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:15:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilddragonflying/pseuds/wilddragonflying
Summary: Nick gets to see how Kaili operates up close and personal.





	Confidence Man

Nick never had any real expectations when he took a case, except for things to go spectacularly to shit. Which, they had the first time he met Kaili Swesson. Taken prisoner by the Triggermen, held hostage inside an old Vault, he’d had no real hope that he’d be rescued.

Then there had been distant bursts of gunfire that he put down to the Triggermen shooting some ferals, but then - he’d heard barking.

”Barking?” the old synth muttered, trying to get a good view out of the window of the room he’d been trapped inside of. “The hell?” Maybe some raiders were trying to muscle in on the Triggermen’s territory.

He caught a brief flash of blue - a blue that looked suspiciously similar to the old Vault suits that had been hanging on racks in a storage room he’d been dragged past. The color only added to his confusion, because no one wore those suits anymore, so who the hell was wearing one now?

He got his answer a few moments later when, after another brief burst of gunfire accompanied by vicious snarling and barking, the Triggerman who’d been guarding his door went down in a spray of blood, the back of his skull blown out. A face appeared at the window, peering past the blood splatter and grinning when it caught sight of Nick. “Hello,” the newcomer - a woman Nick was surprised to realize he recognized from his implanted memories from before the war - said cheerfully. “Gimme a minute to fiddle with the terminal, then I’ll have you out.”

She disappeared briefly, then the door clicked and slid open with a protest of rusty metal. Nick was waiting, and he shook his head, a grin on his face. “Kaili Swesson. Hell, never thought I’d be in a position to be rescued by you.” At the woman’s look of confusion, he tapped his temple. “I’m a synth; Institute implanted memories from a living person. I got a detective from around the time the bombs dropped, and he knew of you.”

The confusion cleared, and Kaili offered him a smile and a hand. “Well, then it’s a pleasure to meet you, Nick Valentine. I’m hoping you can help me locate someone once I get you out of this hellhole.”

”You help me get out of here, I’ll owe you one,” Nick answered, and they shook on it.

And that was the start of a friendship Nick was quickly coming to cherish deeply. Kaili stood up for him, even going so far as to punch out Paladin Danse when the Brotherhood of Steel member started trash-talking synths, and in return Nick watched her back whenever they were out in the Commonwealth. It was a good partnership, and soon everyone at Sanctuary Hills at least tolerated him whenever Kaili took someone else out with her and Dogmeat and he didn’t have any cases to attend to in Diamond City.

Nick remembered Hancock from the time before the ghoul was - well, a ghoul. Before he left Diamond City after his brother got elected to mayor. He was surprised when Hancock showed up, tagging along with the Vault Dweller and her dog, talking about how Kaili had taken care of No-Nose Bobbi for him after the two-faced bitch conned Kaili and another man into helping her break into Goodneighbor’s vault. He wasn’t surprised when, a few weeks later, after Hancock and Kaili returned to Sanctuary uncharacteristically quiet, Hancock approached him.

The ghoul only dithered for a moment before asking, “Did you know about Kaili? Before the War - or well, the original Nick.”

”He did,” Nick answered. “She won the respect of just about anyone who knew her who wasn’t on the wrong side of a mission. Lot of people owed her their lives or the lives of their loved ones.”

”She showed me the records,” Hancock says, though Nick already guessed. “It’s just - what she went through, the things that she did and had done to her, I can’t imagine.”

”I know,” Nick says sympathetically. “Not many people could - and Kaili knows. There’s too many nights she wakes up from nightmares she can’t even scream about.”

”Dogmeat stays right by her,” Hancock tells him. “Whenever we camp, he sticks so close to her side she trips over him, and he’s always right there when she wakes up.”

Nick nods. “So what are you going to do about it?” he asks, and Hancock gives him a startled look.

”Do what about what?”

”The enormous crush you’re harboring on her. You’re not exactly subtle, John. Never were.”

Hancock snorts, getting up from where he’d been lounging on a nearby bench while Nick tended to the crops he’d been assigned. “Yeah, no. Who the hell would want to shack up with a ghoul?”

Nick just rolls his eyes; honestly, humans and ghouls could be so blind.

It’s a noticeable change when Yefim tells Kaili that Vadim has been kidnapped by the men he’d hired to throw a barfight. Her expression hardens and her eyes go flinty, the light grey sparking in the dim lighting. “Who would know where they went?” she snaps, one hand curling into a fist that Dogmeat noses at, whining anxiously until the fist loosens.

”Travis was closer to Vadim,” the innkeeper answers. “He may know more - I tried to stay away from those men.”

Kaili nods and turns on her heel, stalking from the Dugout Inn, Nick and Dogmeat following in her wake. Nick pauses only to rip a bounty for some raiders causing trouble from the pinboard - killing raiders always seems to help cheer Kaili up.

Kaili attempts to dissuade Travis from coming to the Beantown Brewery as well, but when they arrive at the old building, the kid is standing there, too, clutching a pistol and looking determined. “We’re going to go in there, show them we mean business, and then get Vadim and - and everything will go back to normal, right?” he presses, and Kaili glances at the building, running a critical eye over it as Nick counts bullets.

”Right,” she says after a moment. “Now, we’re going in blind, and you have little experience with combat, especially guns. Stay behind us, don’t shoot us, and make sure no one comes up behind us,” she orders, then gestures for Nick and Dogmeat to fall into position. Well used to sneaking into raider camps and feral nests, Nick falls in on Kaili’s right, Dogmeat on her left as she reaches for the handle. “Stay low, don’t do more than whisper, and make sure you know what you’re shooting at before you pull the trigger,” Kaili adds, and then opens the door.

The raiders who took Vadim never knew what hit them. A bullet or two apiece dropped them like flies, and even Travis got off a shot or two, landing one to a raider’s shoulder that opened him up for Dogmeat to attack. It was a brief, lopsided firefight, and then they were hurrying across the railings to the office, Vadim laughing about how the raiders never bothered checking on him as he filled his pockets with caps and chems. Kaili spoke with him and Travis, making sure both of them were okay, and then spent a few minutes clearing out the office and picking the lock on the safe.

”So,” Nick says eventually, breaking the silence. “Was this what it was like, before?”

Kaili glances at him over her shoulder, expression unreadable before she shrugs and turns back to the safe. “Not really. Usually there was a much higher chance of dying - I’ve faced ghouls and terrorists more dangerous than these morons. Now, if they’d been super mutants - that would’ve been a challenge.”

”How does it feel? Rescuing people again, being in the thick of things.”

Kaili sighs, pocketing some of the ammo and caps she scavenged from the safe and handing him the rest. “It’s… odd. I thought, after Nate and I left the military a year before the bombs dropped, that that was it. We were done. Then the bombs dropped, we got sealed into a Vault, and someone stole my son and shot my husband, and when I wake up, I find that the world has gone to shit and is only just now really starting to recover.” Kaili falls quiet for a moment, then confesses, “Sometimes I’m a little scared at how easily I fit in with this world.”

Nick takes a chance, then, stepping forward to lay a hand on Kaili’s shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “You’re a fighter,” he says. “That’s not a bad thing. You fight to protect the good people, and you fight the bad ones. It’s no different than what you did before the War.”

Kaili gives him a tight smile that relaxes slightly after a moment. “Thanks, Nick,” she says, wrapping one arm around him to give him a quick hug. “Now, let’s get out of here, yeah?”

The corner of Nick’s mouth quirks up, and he nods. “Yeah. I think that one settlement Preston wanted us to check out is nearby.”

Kaili grins, then, a real grin, and resettles the pistol at her hip. “Let’s go, then.”


End file.
